Love As An Award
Does love have to be deserved? | Analysis of past survey questions
I did really well in the survey for that day — 12 of my answers coincided with those of the majority, two came out in the second place, and only one answer was radically different — so much so that it ended up at the bottom 4th place.
So, let’s talk about this different opinion of mine. It is on the topic “Love has to be deserved”.
Honestly, I expected the majority to follow the tendency to stick to the answers of the so-called middle ground type that were an obvious choice for it in the previous questions. In this case, that was the option “agree to an extent”. It had received 40.57% support from the voters, but the winner became “totally agree” with 47.81%. What a surprise!
Anyway, the next one is again somewhere in the middle, but not quite — “rather disagree” — and it has taken 3rd place (6.14%).
Where am I? — Well, among the 25 participants who chose the answer “totally disagree” (5.48%).
Why can’t I ever agree that love has to be deserved?
Well, first of all, because it is not an award granted to us for some efforts or achievements — that is appreciation. Seeing that the majority believes they have to deserve love, the vivid image of “… and the “Oscar” goes to…” immediately popped up in my mind.
Seriously? Is this what people think love is all about?
So, what exactly are the efforts a helpless little baby has to make to be loved? They are not even aware of such things, right? Every one of us started our lives as a newborn that did nothing special to be loved. But were we loved? I bet we all were and still are loved by our closest people, for no special reason but being ourselves. Love doesn’t judge, it doesn’t differentiate between good and bad because it is not a moral category. It’s an emotion, a feeling that is just there.
You either feel it, or you don’t. It is not something that appears or disappears by will. You can’t control it because it’s wild and free, you can only surrender to it. At least, this is what love is in its raw, authentic form — pure and unconditional.
The majority’s opinion made me think that they mistakenly take for love something which is not love at all.
“Love has to be deserved” is essentially an ego trip, a power play, which includes manipulation and attempts of controlling another person’s emotions, which is inherently an impossible task.
Conditioned thinking is subject to change — it falls apart sooner or later.
If love has to be deserved, it means that certain conditions have to apply for that to happen, right? So, who determines these conditions, and why do they think they have the right to do so? Who gave them this right? And what are the conditions anyway?
Since I am pretty sure that whoever tries to answer these questions will actually come up with their own unique conditions that want to apply to the candidates for their love, I want to make it clear that I won’t be found among these candidates.
And the reason for that is simple — I don’t want to hear one day “… and my “Love” goes to Tania for her contribution to…”.
I definitely won’t dedicate my life to winning such an “award”, and neither will I agree that someone does so to “win” my love in return.
Instead, I am more than happy when I hear “I love you for no particular reason, I just do” and can say the same.
